In an air conditioner (refrigerating apparatus) in which refrigerant (e.g., carbon dioxide) circulates to perform a vapor compression refrigeration cycle in a refrigerant circuit, a four-way valve is provided to switch an operation state between a cooling operation and a heating operation. As one example of the four-way valve, there is a rotary valve for controlling a communication state among a plurality of connection ports by a movable valve element in which a communication path is formed (see, e.g., Patent Document 1).
In the rotary valve disclosed in Patent Document 1, a valve element (bowl-shaped element) for the four-way valve is rotatably attached to an inner bottom surface of a case. Three ports are provided at the bottom of the case, and another port is provided in a side wall of the case. By rotating the valve element, two of the three ports provided at the bottom of the case selectively communicate with each other, and the other port provided at the bottom of the case and the port provided in the side wall of the case communicate with each other through a space inside the case.